It’s mindboggling sometimes to think about how much has changed in the advertising industry. And while I’m sure every generation has said the same thing, the simple fact is that they were wrong and we are right. No generation of creatives, account people and clients have had to manage as much disruption as we have in terms of media, demographics, economics… my god, the list is endless.

In fact it’s so insane that I have been on something of a crusade to find the truisms that our era has NOT rendered obsolete. The ones we can still rely upon – at least until someone invents something new this afternoon. And thankfully, many of them still are true. Like the one about focusing on what the customer needs over what you want to sell them. And a couple of others too.

There are literally thousands of books that will tell you how to manage a brand. And there are at least that many that will tell you how to run a company. Put those together and you might have the number that will tell you how to take care of the people you’re leading to do both of those things.

I know this because in addition to making advertising and teaching it, I review books on it at The Agency Review. And every time I think I’ve read all that there are, the mailman shows up with a dumpster full of new ones and drops them on my desk.

But there’s one important part of being successful – especially in the marketing space – that these books are frustratingly silent on and it’s this: How to client.